Monterey Bay Aquarium's original executive director, Julie Packard, announces her retirement.

Since it was founded 40 years ago, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has had one executive director, Julie Packard. 

She announced on Wednesday, Jan. 15, that she will be stepping down and will instead assume a leadership role on the nonprofit institution's board of trustees. No timeline for the transition has been provided, only Packard's intent to continue in her current role until a successor is onboarded. The Aquarium will retain an executive search firm to conduct a global search for her replacement. 

“Julie Packard has truly been a visionary leader,” Aquarium board chair Tegan Acton said in a statement. “I and my colleagues on the board of trustees are so grateful for everything she’s done."

That "everything she's done" is quite something. 

Packard was not always an ocean person—she thought of herself more as a mountain person and was studying botany at UC Santa Cruz. One intertidal botany class changed the trajectory of her life. She went on to earn a master's degree in marine algal ecology at UCSC.

Then in 1977, her father, David Packard, came up with a now-famous pitch to his children. The cofounder of the Hewlett-Packard Company told them: Come up with a big project that will make a difference in the world. 

Packard's sister, Nancy Burnett, along with three other marine biologists, hatched the idea for what would become the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It opened on Oct. 20, 1984, when Julie Packard was promoted from project director to executive director.  

In the years since, the Aquarium itself grew and evolved and became a major tourism draw. Its 28-foot kelp forest exhibit—Packard's personal favorite—uses seawater pumped directly from Monterey Bay. 

In 1996, the 1.2-million-gallon Open Sea exhibit expanded displays beyond local ocean life, with tuna—the only such permanent exhibit outside of Japan. It also served as the temporary home to juvenile white sharks that the Aquarium team collected, cared for and then returned to the wild in the early 2000s.

She also led the institution through some tough times, chiefly a pandemic-era closure, when the Aquarium was closed to visitors and only so-called essential workers managing animal husbandry could enter. That period included layoffs for a 40-percent reduction in staff.

Before that, the Aquarium faced a 2019 class-action lawsuit over how it pays non-exempt employees. And just yesterday, Jan. 14, workers announced plans to unionize. 

While the Aquarium's physical footprint has itself been innovative in the world of zoos and aquariums, the institution has reached well beyond its walls.

It developed a sea otter program, in which surrogate sea otter moms raise stranded otter pups, helping enable them to survive in the wild. The Aquarium created the Seafood Watch program, a rating system that helps inform consumers of which seafood is lowest- or highest-impact to consume. 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium helped establish the Aquarium Conservation Partnership, an alliance among 32 aquariums, zoos and other organizations in the U.S. and Canada that collectively advocates for ocean-friendly policies.

Aquarium leaders are involved in policy issues such as plastic pollution (advocating against single-use shopping bags and straws), and signing the "We Are Still In" pledge to reflect continued support for the Paris climate accords. 

Packard has received the Audubon Medal for Conservation, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award and the California Coastal Commission's Coastal Hero award, among other accolades.

In addition, she has served on the Pew Oceans Commission, spoken at international conferences like the World Trade Organization, and was the second woman in conservation ever, after Rachel Carson, to be the subject of a commissioned portrait for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. 

In addition to serving on the Aquarium's board, Packard will continue to serve on the boards of the Packard Foundation and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). 

“It’s time to pass the torch to a new leader who will chart the Aquarium’s course in the decades to come," Packard said in a statement. "We have a fantastic staff and volunteer team, a unique and powerful experience for our guests, and a critical mission.

"The Aquarium’s future is brighter than ever. I can’t wait to see what comes next.”